


the beauty in our ugly lives

by hypophrenia



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M, fourth work yay, the good boys, what do you mean ignoring the chimera ant arc is not a good coping mechanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 01:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12002109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypophrenia/pseuds/hypophrenia
Summary: killua falls in love with a boy made of sunshine and joy, with sparkles in his eyes made of pure magic.





	the beauty in our ugly lives

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the things they carried](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4514364) by [atlas (songs)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs/pseuds/atlas). 



> oh boy ready for some gay stuff? i am.
> 
> anyways yes it's purposely not capitalized (haters will say i was too lazy to do that) and chimera ant arc? whomst?
> 
> dedicated to my one friend who's never seen hxh and never will but she can least appreciate gay stuff. 
> 
> also what do you mean the "what do you want to be in your next life" thing was a preview of episode 123 and not some romantic campfire lit thing on whale island? is this the mandela effect?

i. 

killua finds something beautiful in gon’s voice, all airy and sweet like spun sugar candy, fluffy and bright pastel colors. he’s heard gon speak in a voice dark and menacing, but it’s never been directed at killua before—

(And he finds himself at the receiving end much later, at the end of a blank stare so devoid of its former glory Killua even flinches.)

but even so, it’s not something killua ever really thought too much about, and maybe he’s gone _soft_ being spoiled on the pure sunshine sweetness that is gon. but it’s the kind of sugar he doesn’t mind taking too much, to take in something he doesn’t deserve. gon is not his, after all. gon is a sunshine-child who spun stars into silk and danced among the clouds.

no matter how much gon stays with him, he’ll never really be free of his family and the chains they draped over his shoulders like a rusty, twisted medal. but when he sees the sparkling of gon’s eyes yet again, he convinces himself it’s okay to be with gon for just a while longer.

 

ii.

the pads of gon’s palms are calloused and tanned, and they’re the very image of someone honest and hardworking, if that even makes sense.

gon is honest. gon is hardworking. gon is a good person, full of the kind of light that shone and burned and brought darkness to light, even for just a moment. _he_ is the one people love, the one who brings together people like it was all he was born to do.

and killua’s hands are pale and when he stares for a second too long, he’ll see blood on it again, feel it between his fingers, warmth quickly cooling.

no light of gon’s can wash the blood from killua’s hands. he’s a murderer, a killer, someone who doesn’t deserve gon. but no matter what gon does, killua will always be there, because gon’s all he knows and all he can imagine.

(He doesn’t imagine that Gon will bring himself down—which is the way the world works, the way that he and Gon couldn’t quite grow up fast enough to understand. But nothing can get rid of memories of fights  fought together, a game before the collapse of everything they knew, and an island in the middle of nowhere.)

so killua stays. not because he’s paid to or because there’s a benefit, but because of gon. maybe killua can’t get rid of the lives he’s destroyed, but if holding gon’s hand means they’ll be together longer, then it’ll all be worth it.

 

iii.

it’s stupid, but every time gon’s lips curl up into that familiar smile of his, killua’s heart leaps and bounces as if to say _this is the price you pay for growing too attached_.

he doesn’t connect it to love until someone asks him. surprisingly, it’s kurapika.

“do you love gon?” gon’s asleep and kurapika’s sitting on a ratty couch, watching the other with soft eyes. killua’s mind takes a brief moment to process the words.

“he’s my...friend,” killua says, hesitating on “friend”. it’s enough of a pause for kurapika to direct his stare at killua, who suddenly feels the need to elaborate. he pushes the feeling away, because _zoldycks_ don't need to explain themselves.

“you know that’s not what i meant.” a beat, then kurapika's eyes return to gon. 

killua did. but assassins didn’t fall in love, and gon’s not someone killua can fall in love with. and killua’s perceptive, and he knows himself better than anyone else.

gon was the only exception, but he could be so _dense_ sometimes. and as long as gon remains an idiot, killua will never let him know. because if that little warmth in his heart and heat in his cheeks could be called love, he would bring that to his grave.

killua almost wants to laugh bitterly, like the defeated villains in the tv shows he saw here and there on cheap hotel televisions. he’d have been better off without this kind of feeling plaguing his mind and ruining his assassinations, and how could the _heir_ of the zoldyck family—

“killua?” he’s shaken out of his little trance and killua swears his thoughts were in illumi’s voice.

“yeah. i’m fine.” another beat, to some music killua had no intention of dancing to. “gon’s a good person.”

kurapika takes the hint and doesn’t press any more. but it was enough for killua to put all the points together and string them along with red thread. 

“and kurapika?” he turns his head to killua, who gives the blond his best smirk, even if it fails to be as mischievous and cheery as he wants in some places. “i didn’t expect you to be the one to bring up love, with you and the old man’s relationship and all.”

this is what flusters kurapika, whose speech goes from elegantly calm to jumbled sputtering.

“me—leorio—what—” this elicits a giggle from killua (who never explicitly said “leorio” but he’ll save that for another time), and his eyes trace over gon’s figure, the boy’s chest rising and falling and full of life. kurapika notices and he goes silent, and they both watch gon for a while.

gon’s special; anyone and everyone can tell that, even old tonpa or dimwitted leorio. gon’s full of talent and energy and he’s such a child sometimes, but a good kind of childish, the kind that was stubborn and liked winning and playing games with his best friend. 

gon’s still asleep when leorio gets back.

 

iv.

sometimes gon’s eyes get a bright kind of spark and youthful joy, like when he thinks of a plan or when something catches his interest. it’s the kind of beauty killua could watch all day, to see gon’s eyes shift from a honeyed brown to gold glowing in sunlight. like expensive jewelry, but not quite, because no amount of riches can compare. gon's eyes aren't flashy chunks of shaped metal; they're pure and candid.

and they flash and burn bright and killua finds himself lost in them. gon’s the one that shakes him out of it with a simple _hey, killua_ that sends his heart thumping and his mind reeling. 

what he has for gon is a liability, he knows, but it feels so nice and it makes him feel so at home. how can anyone forsake such a feeling? 

“hey, killua.” killua’s mind shifts to gon and he looks over. light flickers over gon’s face in the campfire, and gon’s eyes shine in the certain way killua’s never seen him look at anyone else before—

but gon looked at him the way he looked at everyone else, didn’t he? there was no way gon thought of killua as someone other than his—

“what do you want to be in your next life?” killua blinks, and he has to do a double take.

“uh, what do you want to be?” gon grins like he expected killua would ask and his voice has a melodic lilt that jumpstarts killua’s heart again.

“in my next life, i want to be me and meet you again!” this makes killua reach a whole new level of flustered. honestly, did gon ever feel shame?

“i-idiot!” but gon’s smile never falters and killua feels the warmth in his cheeks and looks away to save himself what remained of his grace. 

it’s unfair that gon makes him feel this way. it’s unfair gon has this kind of effect on him when killua could very well disappear the next day and gon would move on. but if the same happened to gon, killua would burn down cities and tear apart the world just to find him.

love hurts. it dissolves killua’s insides like the way poison a little too potent feels sliding down his throat.

he’d die for gon. but gon would never feel the same, would he?

 

v.

gon has the nature of a child, but the heart of a hunter. what does he hunt? ging. he hunts ging freecss, a father that left too soon and let his child grow up without him. a man that left others in his trail and anyone less than his son would never find him.

but gon is ging’s son, and when gon sets his mind to something, he does it. he’s stubborn and sometimes it’s a good thing, like when he won against hanzo in the hunter exam, or bad, like when he just had to win the dodgeball game against razor no matter what.

both times ended good. both times had its problems fixed and gon was always alright. but killua’s scared of a time when it won’t, when gon’s stubbornness will get him hurt. or worse, killed.

but there are some things worse than death, and those are the things killua is most scared of happening to gon.

he can’t prevent everything. someday he won’t even be there, maybe because gon’s moved on or maybe because he’s out of his borrowed time. killua doesn’t mind the second as much as he should, but the first makes his heart break into pieces.

would gon grow up and grow old and leave behind their friendship? would he find another best friend, another person to spar and laugh at bad jokes together with?

here’s what killua knows about gon after two years: gon is selfish. gon is a hypocrite. gon is concerned with only things that involve him and interest him and maybe when killua’s not so interesting to him anymore he’ll become a disposable friend and then there’ll be no more gon in his life, and—

and gon is beautiful. gon is everything beautiful about the world and humanity, everything good in life condensed into a living, breathing person. and a time will come when everything about gon will shift in the wrong way, much more potent than the scary expressions gon made sometimes or the harsh edge in his voice when someone displeased him.

killua’s seen the way the world works. and gon’s had his fair share of red flags, but the thought of the red flags sets killua off and he can feel his nails press into his hands. gon’s not ready to turn dark, to become anything less than the beacon of light he is. he prays—hopes, really, because he’s never believed in a god and never will—that gon can be a child, that he won’t be forced to grow up like he was.

gon is someone killua won’t be able to stand to lose. he loves, gon, yes, but what chance is there to have his feelings reciprocated? gon is dense and oblivious and a moron. but he loves that moron, so who is he to—

“killua! hurry up!” gon’s voice shakes killua out of whatever rut it was stuck in, and killua feels a smile subtly slip onto his face. 

“yeah, yeah.” killua walks to where gon is waiting, and he pushes aside his worries. for as long as gon will let him, he’ll stay with the other. isn’t that what love is about?

when the time comes, killua will deal with that then. but for now, gon’s waiting and he’ll enjoy his time with him as much as he can.


End file.
